You won’t read much about the latest human trafficking ring busted in Georgia where workers were raped, kidnapped and imprisoned in squalid camps, according to prosecutors. But in perusing the foreign press— in this instance, the Daily Mail newspaper in Great Britain— you can often find news about your own state that is hard to find elsewhere.
InsiderAdvantage ran across an article in the newspaper reporting on a federal indictment alleging workers from Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala were forced to live in squalor on business properties like the farm and property of Charles King, of Kings Berry Farms in Waycross.
“The crooks raked in more than $200 million by luring in over 100 desperate migrants from Mexico and Central America to the United States,” the paper reports. “At least two people died in the brutal conditions that saw workers forced to handpick onions at gunpoint for just 20 cents per bucket in sweltering heat, and another was repeatedly kidnapped and raped. They were kept in squalid camps surrounded by electric fences or cramped living quarters, including dirty trailers with raw sewage leaks. The migrants also reportedly had their passports and documents taken from them to deter them from escaping.”
Two dozen members of the alleged trafficking gang have been indicted by the Southern District’s U.S. Attorney’s office on mail fraud, forced labor, money laundering and witness tampering charges following a three-year, multi-agency federal probe known as “Operation Blooming Onion.” They are accused of misusing the federal H-2A visa program to bring in workers from Central America under the pretext of being agricultural workers; abusing and exploiting the workers to make money, and then laundering the proceeds through big cash purchases, cashier’s checks and a casino.
The newspaper said only two of the defendants are described as South Georgia business owners. Most are contractors and recruiters.
